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caffeineivore · 4 months

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The Witching Hour

Liminal Spaces, moments in time, beautiful and forlorn and uncanny.

R/J, PG13-ish?

The parking lot is lit by a single pole light that flickers erratically, and the neon sign reading "Vacancy" has both A's out. Jace usually isn't one for such Uncanny Valley trappings, but beggars can't be choosers at midnight and his low fuel light came on twenty miles ago.

It's a small motel in the middle of a small town in the middle of a lonely stretch of freeway in the middle of nowhere-- the type that some poor idiot in a horror movie would probably get gruesomely murdered in, but then again, he was hardly a nubile ingenue or a dumbass jock. He'd certainly stayed in worse places during a long stint as a UC in LA, and he thinks he'd take the tumbleweeds and the flickering neon over the seedy underbelly of the City of Fallen Angels anytime. He doesn't have much on him to attract the bad sort of attention anyway-- a lone man in worn jeans and a leather jacket that had seen better days, bearing an old duffel bag and dark gold five-o'-clock shadow, a few battered twenties in his wallet and an ankle holster that doesn't show as he walks.

The lobby is small, neat as a pin and almost inhumanly bright in the glare of harsh fluorescents as he comes in. A pair of tired-looking armchairs and a loveseat in faded red chenille, gunmetal-grey industrial carpeting. The front desk is shielded by a panel of reinforced glass and features a computer that looks positively ancient, but he does a double-take when he comes up to the counter. As a rule, night auditors at places of lodging are a bit unsociable, slightly Eldritch, with the uncanny factor increasing proportionate to the lateness of the hour and the remoteness and shabbiness of the location, and this specimen certainly had nothing ordinary about her, either. She looks up as he raises a hand to ring the service bell, holds his gaze in an unblinking violet stare for a moment too long, but it's her beauty that stops him in his tracks.

Fifteen years in Los Angeles has Jace all but immune to the countless number of meaningless beautiful faces all around him. A starlet's lush-lipped smile looks a lot less inviting two hours later in a rictus of drug-induced convulsions. Diamonds and bullets, champagne and smog, sunsets and blood-soaked asphalt. This woman could be twenty or a hundred, with an ageless face that he imagined angels would have if they were real-- the type of angels that smote a sinner with swords and fire, not the type that graced Hallmark cards and Victoria's Secret catalogues. Fathomless violet eyes, blood-red lips and a curtain of inky hair. "It's pretty late to be traveling, isn't it?"

"Absolutely, and I'm tired the hell out. Do you have a room for the night, and maybe a gas station close to here that opens sometime tomorrow morning, sweetheart?"

She cocks her head to the side rather like a bird might as it stares at a new street sign. "This isn't where you're supposed to be right now, but I won't begrudge you a night's rest and shelter," she says at length, almost to herself. She slides a tattered registration binder and an honest-to-God fountain pen across the desk, under the panel of glass, and her voice takes on a slightly brisker tone. "Name and address, please. That will be fifty dollars. Room 12, which will be six doors down, on the right. We don't have breakfast, but there's a cafe down the road next to the gas station, about five miles out. Check out is at ten."

"Thanks, love." His fingers brush hers for the briefest of moments as he takes the keys-- old fashioned metal ones, not plastic cards, and he would have expected her hands to be ghostly-cold. But they're warm and soft, like the glow of hearth fire behind a screen. He almost wants to give them a squeeze, but that would be creepy. He signs "Jacen Reinhardt" and puts down the address of an apartment that he'd not set foot in for the last two years, and slides three twenties across the table. "Keep the change. I'd've driven on, you know, but I can barely keep my eyes open, and I'm almost out of gas. You probably saved my life." He tacks that last part on with a wink that would have melted a model or a gun moll alike, but she simply continues to look at him with something that looks weirdly like silent absolution in those dark, mysterious eyes.

"I wish that were true," she murmurs, tipping her face downwards towards the registration binder as she puts it back in its drawer. "Rest well. You're safe here."

"I'll catch you tomorrow morning before you're off, doll. Sweet dreams."

He finds Room 12 without much difficulty, unlocks it with those old-fashioned keys. It's just as tidy as the lobby under the glow of the incandescent table lamp, with a single bed and heavy burgundy drapes over its windows, but the shower runs hot and the pillows are soft under his weary head. Jace is asleep almost as soon as he lies down, before he could even have taken any of the types of precautions he might have been accustomed to in the big city, but she's a woman of her word and he sleeps soundly and well. He dreams in flashes and fits that night, fleeting images that flit across his subconscious-- snow-white lilies, stark black ravens, fire that arrows across an eerie silver sky, the clash of swords and the crush of lovers' lips-- but nonetheless, the sun is high in the sky when he wakes from the best sleep that he's had in a long time.

One look on the old-fashioned analog alarm clock on the nightstand tells him that he has all of nineteen minutes to check out, and so Jace hurries into the lobby, raking one hand through his tousled blond hair, keys in hand, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, eyes peeled for that oil-slick of black hair. In daylight, it's a much-different place-- not cheery, perhaps, but pleasant. Almost welcoming. Ordinary. Manning the front desk is a perky redhead who cheerfully points him towards the direction of the gas station as she accepts the keys and wishes him safe travels.

"Thanks... Molly, is it?" He reads the name on the gilt nametag pinned on her blouse, and racks his brain for whether the woman last night had worn one. "This might be an odd question, but... who was here last night? The overnight lady."

"Oh, I don't know any of the others," Molly replies, furrowing her brow in a bewildered way. "I usually just miss her. I've just started here, you see, for a summer job. But I know she's been here for a long time. She's never here after daybreak. I work nine to five."

That is, of course, supremely unhelpful, but it's not something that he can fault her for. Jace coaxes his car into life and drives off into the sunshine, towards the very ordinary gas station and very ordinary cafe that likely serves very ordinary coffee and bacon and eggs that would fuel him until his next destination, and wonders if he's lost a night or a small eternity of his life that he just won't ever quite understand.

Strange things always happen during the witching hour, that's a given. But there's never been cause to wonder, before this, of lost time and liminal spaces that have never been his before, beautiful and forlorn and uncanny, of ghosts and angels when neither of those things were real.

(The other three will be put up on AO3 when I can be arsed to write them)

#fanfic #senshi/shitennou #writing #R/J

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caffeineivore · 1 year

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Send Whiskey, A Prequel

For my R/J peeps.

May need to read the other Send Whiskey snippets (tagged “writing”) for this to make sense. Rated a high PG13 for mentions of violence and drug use.

Winter is a silent killer in the projects. Jaime—named after a probable father who overdosed in an alley eight months after his birth—huddles in front of a rickety space heater and eats a cold and bland dinner—white bread and a slice of American cheese. The space heater was a definite fire hazard in the cramped, dirty room, but as the gas bill hadn’t been paid since October, one did what one had to. Jaime’s mother was working and had not been home since sometime last night, but the money would go towards drugs first and foremost before the gas company would see a dime.

The sound of someone knocking on the door draws his attention, but Jaime stays still and keeps quiet. There were no such thing as friendly neighbours in a building such as theirs, and his mother’s associates would know that she wasn’t home. He’s about to finish his sandwich when the door bangs open on its hinges, and before he can react, a sweaty man in gang colours bursts into the room and he’s lifted off his feet, the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against his jaw. “Come any closer and the brat buys it!” The voice is vaguely familiar, likely one of his mother’s paramours. Jaime drops the remnants of his sandwich and watches, wide-eyed, as a woman in a black trench coat comes to a halt in the doorway, her eyes hard as the pistol she kept trained on her quarry.

“This will not end well for you.” Her voice is mellifluous, bearing none of the harsh consonants of the locals or the rasp from his mother’s that came from long-term smoking. “You won’t find a hole deep enough to hide in if you hurt a child, Craig. You know this.”

“I don’t give a shit! That bastard set me up!” Spittle flies from Craig’s mouth and lands on Jaime’s face, but he’s too scared to do anything but wince. “You’re going to drop that gun and back the fuck up, bitch!”

“As you wish.” Her voice is calm, almost bored, as she lowers her gun and takes a step back. Craig keeps his own gun pressed to Jaime’s face, and doesn’t move it away until the woman lays her pistol on the floor, about a foot away from the ancient space heater. She makes a show of standing up slowly and taking another step back, and then the next few moments are a blur.

A knife, thin as one of Jaime's fingers, whizzes through the air to embed itself in Craig’s throat. His arms slacken and he falls to the ground with a sickening gurgle of blood, and Jaime runs towards the doorway. The woman catches him by the upper arms, her hands firm but gentle, and frightened blue eyes meet amethyst ones. “It’s all right, honey. You’re safe now.” A faint, slightly careworn smile crosses her lips. “What’s your name?”

“Jaime.”

“Well, Jaime, I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m sure you’re scared. Probably hungry, too. You can call me Abby.”

The woman named Abby takes him out of the cold, dirty apartment and buys him a burger and fries. Her car is black and spotlessly neat, with a booster seat in the back and tinted windows. It smells pleasantly of some floral air freshener and the radio plays soft music heavy on violins. Jaime is almost afraid of dirtying the car with his food or the blood staining his ragged sweatshirt, but hunger eventually wins out and he inhales the meal.

“I have a daughter about your age,” Abby tells him, her eyes kind as they glance into the rearview mirror. “Probably a bit younger. I’d set up a play date, but I don’t think your mother would like that. Maybe someday.”

She takes him to a cozy little house at the outskirts of town, where he gets a change of clothes and a shower with hot water and bubbles, and he falls asleep on a soft couch, watching cartoons on a big TV in a nice living room. When he wakes up, he’s at a police precinct, an exhausted-looking social worker with dark circles under her eyes and caffeine jitters in her hands asking questions about his home life and the horrific scene with Craig. The social worker makes mention of Abby, but calls her Absinthe for some reason. He answers the questions as best as he can, but at ten years of age, he isn’t deemed a reliable witness, and he’s returned to the tenement building where his mother lives and a drug dealer held a gun to his head. Strangely, though, the gas bill is paid, and every week, a load of groceries gets dropped off on the stoop. It’s cans of soup and pre-sliced fruit and sandwich fixings at first—easy enough for even a little boy to make by himself without adult help. By the time Jaime turns thirteen, though, it has shifted to food that requires a skillet or an oven. He burns a few things, over-seasons a few other things at first, but gradually learns.

Life takes another turn for the bizarre when he’s on the cusp of seventeen. As the years went by, the sightings of the woman who’d birthed him become increasingly rare. The work comes less these days, as her looks and health deteriorates with the years of hard living, but she benefits from the mysteriously paid bills and groceries just as he does, and finds herself at liberty to spend all of her earnings on the pills and heroin. Jaime comes home one day from school to find her on the floor, a band still wrapped around her forearm, already room-temperature and stiff.

It's a different social worker who talks to him at the same police precinct, but the dark circles and caffeine jitters are familiar. Jaime has no relatives on record, but there is paperwork stating that a benefactor has set aside money to provide for him, including a trust fund to be paid out upon his twenty-fifth birthday. The social worker gives him a business card bearing an address downtown, and Jaime takes the bus down to the commercial district, finds himself standing in front of what looks like a bar called “The Distillery”, all but deserted in the light of day.

He half expects some burly staff member to kick him out for being underage as he pulls open the heavy wooden doors, and wonders if the address was a misprint. The Distillery is dimly lit but clean, all dark wood panels and moody lighting. The Barkeep is a grizzled man of perhaps sixty, whose diminutive stature nonetheless gave an impression of hidden reserves of strength, and Jaime feels pinned by the rheumy eyes under the cap of iron-grey hair. “Is there something I can help you with, son?” The voice, too, is deceptively genial, and something about the question feels off.

“My name is Jaime Bradley. I got a card with this address,” Jaime comes to a stop at the bar, but doesn’t take a seat on one of the stools. “Supposedly someone here has been paying my bills, setting aside money for me. I don’t have any idea what that’s about.”

The Barkeep holds out a hand to take the card, and just as Jamie slides it across the bar top, the swinging doors to the kitchen open, and a young girl walks out, fine-boned and lovely, unbound hair a raven waterfall flowing to her waist. Jaime’s breath catches in his throat as his eyes lock with her amethyst ones. She’s perhaps his age, perhaps a year younger, but the features are unmistakable, and he remembers a burger and a booster seat in a black car, a gunman felled with a knife thrown so fast he didn’t even see her move. “Abby. She told me her name was Abby.”

The old man’s lips curve up in a sad sort of smile even as he scans the business card, which under the dim lighting shows a peculiar watermark in the paper. “She would have, sonny. I daresay you were too young to remember a name like Absinthe. She did tell me about you, all those years ago.” He lays a broad hand on the slim shoulder of the girl. “I tried to encourage her to take over for me in here after Ruth was born, instead of handling orders and shipments, but she was a bit of a chip off the old block. Stubborn. She didn’t like leaving a loose end, especially with a child.”

The past tense in reference to Abby doesn’t escape Jaime’s attention, and the Barkeep reads the question in the younger man’s eyes. “Cape Town, five years ago. She had already made arrangements for you, though.” The old man wipes down the already-clean bar top with a white towel, and meets Jaime’s eyes. “It’s up to you, son. If you have an idea of where you want to stay, what you want to do, I’ll have my accountant write you a check.” The towel gets put away, and the old man sets a bowl of beer nuts on the bar top, surveying Jaime shrewdly. “If you’re not sure yet, maybe we could talk.”

The girl named Ruth scowls up at the old man, and she’s even prettier when she’s angry. Jaime is also almost positive that if he were to say so, she’d eviscerate him. “We don’t know him, Grandpa.”

“Absinthe never missed, little one,” the Barkeep admonishes. “And I could use a strong back, an extra pair of hands.”

“I’ll do it.” Jaime’s decision is made on an impulse, but then again, having some semblance of a home and a job seems wiser than being given a lump sum of money that he had no idea how to manage. “She saved my life, after all.”

He has no idea exactly what “it” entails, but the Barkeep’s lips quirk up in a smile. “All right. I’ll show you the ropes. You’ll be a decent Barback, I daresay, after a bit of training. Ruth will help.”

Ruth glowers and crosses her arms over her chest. “You can’t make me.”

“Now, now, let’s not have any petulance. My name is Louis, but you can call me Lou, son, and I think I’ll call you J. Have you any knowledge of the different types of spirits and their uses?”

Jaime only knows so far and so much as how much of a bottle it would take before his mother, or one of her associates, would be slurring, or mean, or unconscious. “I know that they can all fuck a person up, if enough is had,” he says baldly, then winces at Ruth’s haughty expression. “Pardon the expression.”

But the Barkeep chuckles, leans back on his heels. “That’s a start and a true statement. We’ll go down the line.” One hand gestures the shelves behind him, at the wide assortment of bottles. “Whiskey. Gin. Tequila. Rum. Vodka. Brandy. These are the most famous, most utilized ones. But we do have several other varieties on offer as well. Aquavit. Calvados. Bourbon. Moonshine, for example. Each has its own distinctive qualities and characteristics. If the intention is simply to, in your words, ‘fuck a person up’, anyone can do the job. A real Barkeep, however, is quite discerning about what spirit to utilize for what purpose. What would best suit the wishes of the client and the personality of the customer. And a Barback is the Barkeep’s right hand man, one who supports the Barkeep through all the orders and their individual needs, maintains the flow of the business so that everyone leaves out happy at Last Call.” He’s a good four inches shorter than Jaime, but he doesn’t require the height to hold the younger man’s complete attention. “Are you ready for it?”

Jaime doesn’t quite know what the Barkeep is referring to, but he’s almost positive it has nothing to do with actual drinking. “I’m willing to learn, Lou.” Ruth’s expression next to her grandfather’s is snide, and it puts his back up. “Whether or not everyone’s willing to teach me.”

Lou glances from Ruth’s mutinous expression to Jaime’s raised chin, and lets out a chuckle. “You’ll do, J. You’ll do.”

***

The lights of the city never quite die down, but outside, it is finally that time of night that the streets are mostly quiet. In the manager’s office of The Distillery, Ruth nurses a cup of coffee gone cold, meticulously tallies up accounts. It’s the end of the month, and all invoices are due. The month had been a profitable one, all things considered.

The door opens behind her, and J walks in, sets down a plate next to the computer keyboard. There’s a burger on it and a basket of fries. “Eat something if you’re going to pull an all-nighter,” he says in his patient way. “You’re going to be no good tomorrow if you’re sick and exhausted.”

She glances up, and though he’s definitely filled out more, gained a few tattoos and a handful of scars and a dozen or so close calls since twelve years ago, his eyes meet hers with the same forthrightness, the same hint of awe. He’s more at ease, though, and presses a kiss to the top of her head as though he had a perfect right to her, before dropping a napkin down by the plate.

“You’re very bossy for an employee.” Ruth tries to sound cross, and almost succeeds. J blithely ignores the statement, and gives her a smile designed to disarm even the most suspicious of characters. He could have, with the right training, become a formidable part of the guild, traveling far and wide with the rest of them, but Ruth is selfishly glad that he’d never opted for that route. Something in his spirit—an altruistic, caring part that remained determinedly kind and faithful despite the cruelty of the world he’d always known, might have been extinguished in those dark alleyways and blood-soaked rooms of the world. He might have lost some of his great capacity for love, and she would have been bereft without it.

“Someone needs to keep you in line,” J gently turns her swivel chair until she is facing him, then bends at the waist, kisses the point of her cheekbone, then the corner of her mouth. “I’m pretty sure it’s in my job description.”

“Barbacks support Barkeeps with the flow of business, running tabs, and the cleanup. I don’t think there’s anything about ordering me around.”

“Stubborn. It must be hereditary.” J shakes his head, then pushes the plate towards her. “I made a promise to Lou, and to Abby’s memory. And even if I didn’t… I’m yours, til the end.” He cups her cheek with one hand, and this time she relents, meets him halfway with her own mouth for the briefest of seconds before she gives him a gentle shove on the shoulder.

“I’m busy. You’re distracting me.”

“All right, I’ll make myself scarce. But eat your food before it gets cold.” J gives her another gentle smile, and shuts the office door quietly behind his back. Ruth scoots her chair back up to the desk, and picks up a fry, dunks it in ketchup. The warm familiarity of the meal tastes like nostalgia, like a decade of teamwork and long nights and bickering.

Like not-quite childhood sweethearts and a stolen kiss before a murder.

Absinthe never missed, indeed.

#writing #R/J

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